


Eddie Gluskin Took an Axe

by Needle_Bones



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:58:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3750688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Needle_Bones/pseuds/Needle_Bones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Eddie Gluskin took an axe and gave his uncle 40 whacks. And when he saw what he had done, he gave his father 41.' </p>
<p>That's actually (almost) the Lizzy Borden rhyme but I thought it was fitting here. I've never written for Eddie before so this was an interesting one to try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eddie Gluskin Took an Axe

It had been years since he thought of that day.

The hot summer air clung to him as he ran home that day, past the park, past Rachael Miller's house on the corner, past his uncle's truck in the driveway. Eddie Gluskin, all of 15 years old and gangly, leaned on the screen door separating the back porch from the outside world, and thought.

His mother hovered in the kitchen, face hidden under too-thick makeup. She must have been to the market today.

“He's here,” was all Eddie felt like saying.

His mother looked puzzled. “Who? Your uncle?” She sighed, patience thin as the window glass. “Now, honey, I keep telling you: you have nightmares. I know it's scary but they're just very bad dreams.”

Eddie looked at her then, taking careful note of the limp in her step, the lines of her face, visible even under her makeup. She looked so much older than her years. He'd always thought that about her but that day it seemed so much more obvious.

“They're downstairs,” he said, somehow knowing it without being given any indication it was true. “Daddy took his camera out of the cabinet.”

His mother tensed. “He had a new project,” she said. “He wanted pictures of it.”

Eddie's hands slipped from the door and he walked forward. It was too warm inside the house, like it usually was. His mother called something about dinner as he crossed into the living room where his uncle's jacket was hanging on the back of a chair.

He dropped his school bag against one of the legs, unzipping the back just enough to pull something cloth-covered from it.

The stairs creaked under his then-negligible weight. His father met him at the bottom, wrapping an arm too-tightly around his shoulders and talking, always talking. His uncle smiled at him from across a worktable. Eddie didn't smile back.

“Hi, Eddie,” he said. “Been a little while, huh? You're getting to be such a big boy.” He reached to ruffle his hair. Eddie dropped the cloth from around the knife and swung the blade up, slicing into his wrist.

If his mother heard the screaming, she was too frightened to come and see the damage. Even now, Eddie only remembered bits and pieces of that day. After that first strike, things blurred and time seemed to stretch on forever, stained and scarred, never to be right again.

“Eddie?” his mother called from the top of the stairs. “Eddie, have you seen my knife? This is the second time and your father -” She stopped short half-way down to the cold basement floor. Her son sat slumped against the wall, her chef's knife held loosely in his hand. His father lie bleeding and dying on the tile, clawing and cursing. And the boy's uncle...

Even when the police asked her to identify the bodies later on, she had refused to look at him. The skin of his face had hung from bone as though it had been torn into by a starving lion.

Eddie had clung to her until the police left. And then she had clung to him.

“So now, you see,” Eddie said, twirling the knife as he crossed the rotting floorboards. “Vulgar men can only cause trouble. Not women. Not you, Darling. We've only to... fix you... and you won't feel the need to lash out anymore.” He smiled but it pulled at the bruised skin of his cheek. This one – 'Waylon', her name was – was much stronger than she'd looked.

"You'll be... soft," he said. "And honest. And we'll protect our children. Not like..." There he trailed off, like he always did. Trailing off usually kept the thoughts from flooding back. He reached down to the table and rested a hand against his soon-to-be-bride's cheek, damp with tears of joy as she laughed.

Eddie smiled back at her. "Trust me, Darling... You're going to be beautiful."


End file.
